Maurice Auguste Chevalier, 12 September 1888, Menilmontant, nr. Paris, France, d. 1 January 1972, Paris, France. The ninth of 10 children eventually reduced by death to three males, Chevaliers early ambitions to become an acrobat were thwarted by injury. He toured local cafes and music halls as a singer and broad comedian, and later performed at the Eldorado in Paris.
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Vera Welch, 20 March 1917, London, England. A much-loved singer with a clear, strong, plaintive voice, who is held in great esteem by British audiences because of her work in entertaining service personnel during World War II. At the age of seven she was singing regularly in working mens clubs, and later joined a dancing troupe until she was 15. She made her first broa
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4 July 1963, Münster, Westfalen, Germany. Born to a banker father and a mother who sang opera, Lemper began studying piano and dance at the age of nine. Her formal musical studies took place in Salzburg, at the Dance Academy of Cologne, and in Berlin, and she studied classical theatre at the Max Reinhardt Seminary Drama School in Vienna. In her early teens, she performe
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Ivo Livi, 13 October 1921, Monsummano Terme, Pistoia, Tuscany, Italy, d. 9 November 1991, Senlis, Oise, Picardie, France. Montands Italian parents moved to France where his father became a leader in the French Communist Party. Yves was also later a member of the party until the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. As a young man he worked in Marseilles, France, a
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Frida Josephine McDonald, 3 June 1906, St. Louis, Missouri, USA, d. 12 April 1975, Paris, France. After surviving a difficult childhood and an illegal marriage at the age of 13, Baker left town as a dancer with a touring show. Encouraged by Clara Smith, she persisted with her dancing. In 1921 she remarried, this time retaining her new husbands surname. As Joséph
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Yolanda Christina Gigliotti, 17 January 1933, Cairo, Egypt, d. 3 May 1987, Paris, France. On winning a Miss Egypt beauty contest, Gigiotti, who was born to Italian parents, moved to Paris, France where she spent several fruitless months seeking work as a film actress. Driven to sing as an intermission act in La Villa DEste club, she impressed record industry moguls Bru
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18 May 1913, Narbonne, France, d. 19 February 2001, Paris, France. One of the leading exponents of the French chanson, Trenets mixture of light-hearted comedy and nostalgic romanticism continued to endear him to his countrymen long after most of his contemporaries had passed away. After studying art at the Académie des Arts Décoratives in Paris, Trenet fo
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Norma Jean Mortenson, 1 June 1926, Los Angeles, California, USA, d. 5 August 1962, Brentwood, California, USA (she was baptised Norma Jean Baker according to her grandmothers wishes). As well as being a talented comedienne and the number 1 sex symbol in movies during the 50s, Monroe proved to be an appealing interpreter of flirtatious ballads in several of her most pop
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24 July 1946, Avignon, France. It was convenient, if inaccurate, for the media to brand her a second Edith Piaf, but Mathieu shared a similar poor upbringing. One of 13 children of a stone mason, she used some of her factory wages for singing lessons, until she was noticed by one of Johnny Hallydays former managers, Johnny Stark. He groomed her for stardom via an 
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17 January 1927, Columbia, South Carolina, USA. The daughter of a white dirt farmer and a black Cherokee mother, Kitt was born in the cotton fields of South Carolina. After being given away by her mother she was raised in Harlem, where after a period of struggle she ended up attending the High School for Performing Arts. She later joined Katherine Dunhams famed dancing
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Frances Rose Shore, 29 February 1916, Winchester, Tennessee, USA, d. 24 February 1994, Los Angeles, California, USA. One of her countrys most enduring all-round entertainers, Shore staked her first claim to fame while still at school, on Nashville radio. Further broadcasting and theatre engagements in New York soon followed. She recorded with Xaviar Cugat and Ben Berni
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Frederick Austerlitz, 10 May 1899, Omaha, Nebraska, USA, d. 22 June 1987, Los Angeles, California, USA. One of the greatest - with Gene Kelly - and best-loved dancers in the history of film. The son of an Austrian immigrant, by the age of seven Astaire was dancing in vaudeville with his sister, Adele Astaire (b. Adele Marie Austerlitz, 10 September 1897, Omaha, Nebraska, USA
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Liza May Minnelli, 12 March 1946, Los Angeles, California, USA. Minnelli is an extremely vivacious and animated actress, singer and dancer, in films, concerts, musical shows and television. She was named Liza after the George Gershwin, Ira Gershwin and Gus Kahn song and May after the mother of her film-director father, Vincente Minnelli. Lizas mother was showbusiness l
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Frances Ethel Gumm, 10 June 1922, Grand Rapids, Minnesota, USA, d. 22 June 1969, Chelsea, London, England. The Gumms were a theatrical family. Parents Frank and Ethel had appeared in vaudeville as Jack and Virginia Lee, and later, with the addition of their first two daughters, Mary Jane and Virginia, they appeared locally as The Four Gumms. Baby Frances
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